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- Herausgeber: Madison & Adams Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
"My Life as an Indian" is the memoir of James Willard Schultz. The book tells the story of his first year living with the Pikuni tribe of Blackfeet Indians east of Glacier. Contents: Fort Benton The Ruse of a Savage Lover The Tragedy of the Marias A War Trip for Horses Days With the Game The Story of the Crow Woman A White Buffalo A Winter on the Marias I Have a Lodge of My Own The Killing of a Bear The Kutenai's Story The Great Race The Snake Woman The Snake Woman's Quest I Return to My People The Story of Rising Wolf A Friendly Visit From the Crows A Raid by the Crows Nat-Ah'-Ki's Wedding The Attack on the Hunters Never-laughs Goes East The War Trip of Queer Person The Piegans Move in A Wolverine's Medicine Little Deer's End The Ways of the Northland The Story of Ancient Sleeper Diana's Marriage A Game of Fate Trade, Hunt, and War Party Nat-Ah'-Ki's Ride Curbing the Wanderers Crees and Red Rivers The Last Op the Buffalo The "Winter of Death" The "Black Robe's" Help Later Years
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My Life as an Indian
Table of Contents
Editorial Note
In this account of his long residence with the Blackfeet, Mr. Schultz has given us a remarkable story. It is an animated and vivid picture of Indian life. The scene is on the plains in the old days, in the picturesque period when the tribe lived in a primitive way, subsisting on the buffalo and at war with hostile neighbours. It is a true history and not romance, yet abounds in romantic incident. In its absolute truthfulness lies its value.
The book has extraordinary interest as a human document. It is a study of human nature in red. The author has penetrated the veil of racial indifference and misunderstanding and has got close to the heart of the people about whom he writes. Such an intimate revelation of the domestic life of the Indians has never before been written. The sympathetic in sight everywhere evident is everywhere convincing. We feel that the men and the women portrayed are men and women of actual living existence. And while in the lodges on the Marias the elemental passions have fuller and franker sway, we recognise in the Blackfoot as here revealed a creature of common humanity like our own. His are the same loves and hates and hopes and fears. The motives which move him are those which move us. The Indian is the white man without the veneer of civilisation.
The chapters of this volume were published serially in "Forest and Stream" under the title "In the Lodges of the Blackfeet" and over the pseudonym W. B. Anderson. The title page now bears the author's real name. Not only is the story a true one, but many of the characters still live, though to-day under conditions as different as though centuries had intervened. FATHER PRANDO died in the year 1906.
GEO. BIRD GRINNELL.
Principal Characters
NAT-AH'-KI —A Blackfoot Indian girl who becomes the wife of the AUTHOR; a cheerful and sweet-tempered woman about whom the interest of the story centres. The book's finest character.
THE CROW WOMAN —An Arickaree captured long ago by the Crows and later taken from them by the Bloods.
MRS. BERRY —A Mandan woman, wife of an old time Indian trader, mother of BERRY and friend of the CROW WOMAN ; learned in the ancient lore of her tribe.
DIANA —An orphan Indian girl, educated by ASHTON; a noble and brilliant woman, who meets a tragic death.
THE AUTHOR —At the age of twenty goes west to Montana Territory in search of wild life and adventure, and finds both with the Piegan Blackfeet; he marries into the tribe and lives with them for many years; goes with them on the hunt, and on the warpath; joins in their religious ceremonies; and as a squawman lives the Indian life.
BERRY —A mixed-blood Indian trader, born on the upper Missouri River; speaks half a dozen Indian languages, and is very much at home in Indian camps; an adept at all the tricks of the Indian trade.
SORREL HORSE —White man, trapper, and Indian trader; has an Indian family.
ASHTON —A young white man from the East who carries about with him a secret sorrow but finds peace at last.
FATHER PRANDO —A devoted Jesuit Priest whose life is given to mission work among the Indians. The Blackfeet's friend, comforter, and helper during the terrible Famine Year.
RISING WOLF —Early Hudson Bay man, typical trapper, trader, and interpreter of the romantic days of the early fur-trading period.
HEAVY BREAST —A Blackfoot partisan, leader of war parties, the possessor of a medicine pipe.
WOLVERINE —A Blackfoot, brother-in-law of SORREL HORSE, whom the AUTHOR helped to steal his wife.
Chapter I. Fort Benton
Wide, brown plains, distant, slender, flat-topped buttes; still more distant giant mountains, blue-sided, sharp-peaked, snow-capped; odour of sage and smoke of camp fire; thunder of ten thousand buffalo hoofs over the hard, dry ground; long-drawn, melancholy howl of wolves breaking the silence of night, how I loved you all!
I am in the sere and yellow leaf, dried and shrivelled, about to fall and become one with my millions of predecessors. Here I sit, by the fireplace in winter, and out on the veranda when the days are warm, unable to do anything except live over in memory the stirring years I passed upon the frontier. My thoughts are always of those days; days before the accursed railroads and the hordes of settlers they brought swept us all, Indians and frontiersmen and buffalo, from the face of the earth, so to speak.
The love of wild life and adventure was born in me, yet I must have inherited it from some remote ancestor, for all my near ones were staid, devout people. How I hated the amenities and conventions of society; from my earliest youth I was happy only when out in the great forest which lay to the north of my home, far beyond the sound of church and school bell,and the whistling locomotives. My visits to those grand old woods were necessarily brief, only during summer and winter vacations. But a day came when I could go where and when I chose, and one warm April morning long ago I left St. Louis on a Missouri River steam boat, bound for the Far West.
The Far West! Land of my dreams and aspirations,! I had read and re-read Lewis and Clark's "Journal," Catlin's "Eight Years," "The Oregon Trail," Fremont's expeditions; at last I was to see some of the land and the tribes of which they told. The sturdy flat-bottom, shallow-draft, stern-wheel boat was tied to the shore every evening at dusk, resuming her way at day light in the morning, so I saw every foot of the Missouri's shores, 2,600 miles, which lay between the Mississippi and our destination, Fort Benton, at the head of navigation. I saw the beautiful groves and rolling green slopes of the lower river, the weird "bad lands "above them, and the picturesque cliffs and walls of sandstone, carved into all sorts of fantastic shapes and form by wind and storm, which are the features of the upper portion of the navigable part of the river. Also I saw various tribes of Indians encamped upon the banks of the stream, and I saw more game than I had thought ever existed. Great herds of buffalo swimming the river often impeded the progress of the boat. Numberless elk and deer inhabited the groves and slopes of the valley. On the open bottoms grazed bands of antelope, and there were bighorn on nearly every butte and cliff of the upper river. We saw many grizzly bears, and wolves, and coyotes; and in the evenings, when all was still aboard, the beavers played and splashed along side the boat. What seemed to me most remarkable of all, was the vast number of buffalo we passed. All through Dakota, and through Montana clear to Fort Benton, they were daily in evidence on the hills, in the bottoms, swimming the river. Hundreds and hundreds of them, drowned, swollen, in all stages of decomposition, lay on the shallow bars where the current had cast them, or drifted by us down the stream. I believe that the treacherous river, its quicksands, and its unevenly frozen surface in winter, played as great havoc with the herds as did the Indian tribes living along its course. We passed many and many a luckless animal, sometimes a dozen or more in a place, standing under some steep bluff which they had vainly endeavoured to climb, and there they were, slowly but surely sinking down, down into the tenacious black mud or sands, until finally the turbid water would flow smoothly on over their lifeless forms. One would naturally think that animals crossing a stream and finding themselves under a high cut bank would turn out again into the stream and swim down until they found a good landing place; but this is just what the buffalo, in many cases, did not do. Having once determined to go to a certain place, they made a bee-line for it; and, as in the case of those we saw dead and dying under the cut banks, it seemed as if they chose to die rather than to make a detour in order to reach their destination.
After we entered the buffalo country there were many places which I passed with regret; I wanted to stop off and explore them. But the captain of the boat would say: "Don't get impatient; you must keep on to Fort Benton; that's the place for you, for there you'll meet traders and trappers from all over the Northwest, men you can rely upon and travel with, and be reasonably safe. Good God, boy, suppose I should set you ashore here? Why, in all likelihood you wouldn't keep your scalp two days. These here breaks and groves shelter many a prowlin' war party. Oh, of course, you don't see 'em, but they're here all the same."
Foolish "tenderfoot," innocent "pilgrim" that I was, I could not bring myself to believe that I, I who thought so much of the Indians, would live with them, would learn their ways, would be a friend to them, could possibly receive any harm at their hands. But one day, somewhere between the Round Butte and the mouth of the Musselshell River, we came upon a ghastly sight. On a shelving, sandy slope of shore, by a still smouldering fire of which their half-burned skiff formed a part, lay the remains of three white men. I say remains advisedly, for they had been scalped and literally cut to pieces, their heads crushed and frightfully battered, hands and feet severed and thrown promiscuously about. We stopped and buried them, and it is needless to say that I did not again ask to be set ashore.
Ours was the first boat to arrive at Fort Benton that spring. Long before we came in sight of the place the inhabitants had seen the smoke of our craft and made preparations to receive us. When we turned the bend and neared the levee, cannon boomed, flags waved, and the entire population assembled on the shore to greet us. Foremost in the throng were the two traders who had sometime before bought out the American Fur Company, fort and all. They wore suits of blue broadcloth, their long-tailed, high-collared coats bright with brass buttons; they wore white shirts and stocks, and black cravats; their long hair, neatly combed, hung down to their shoulders. Beside them were their skilled employees—clerks, tailor, carpenter—and they wore suits of black fustian, also brass-buttoned, and their hair was likewise long, and they wore parfleche-soled moccasins, gay with intricate and flowery designs of cut beads. Behind these prominent personages the group was most picturesque; here were the French employees, mostly Creoles from St. Louis and the lower Mississippi, men who had passed their lives in the employ of the American Fur Company, and had cordelled many a boat up the vast distances of the winding Missouri. These men wore the black fustian capotes, or hooded coats, fustian or buckskin trousers held in place by a bright-hued sash. Then there were bull-whackers, and mule-skinners, and independent traders and trappers, most of them attired in suits of plain or fringed and beaded buckskin, and nearly all of them had knives and Colt's powder and ball six-shooters stuck in their belts; and their headgear, especially that of the traders and trappers, was home made, being generally the skin of a kit fox roughly sewn in circular form, head in front and tail hanging down behind. Back of the whites were a number of Indians, men and youths from a near by camp, and women married to the resident and visiting whites. I had already learned from what I had seen of the various tribes on our way up the river, that the everyday Indian of the plains is not the gorgeously attired, eagle plume bedecked creature various prints and written descriptions had led me to believe he was. Of course, all of them possessed such fancy attire, but it was worn only on state occasions. Those I now saw wore blanket or cow (buffalo) leather leggings, plain or beaded moccasins, calico shirts, and either blanket or cow-leather toga. Most of them were bareheaded, their hair neatly braided, and their faces were painted with reddish-brown ochre or Chinese vermilion. Some carried a bow and quiver of arrows; some had flint-lock fukes, a few the more modern cap-lock rifle. The women wore dresses of calico; a few "wives" of the traders and clerks and skilled labourers even wore silk, and gold chains and watches, and all had the inevitable gorgeously hued and fringed shawl thrown over their shoulders.
At one glance the eye could take in the whole town, as it was at that time. There was the great rectangular adobe fort, with bastions mounting cannon at each cor ner. A short distance above it were a few cabins, built of logs or adobe. Back of these, scattered out in the long, wide flat-bottom, was camp after camp of trader and trapper, string after string of canvas-covered freighters' wagons, and down at the lower end of the flat were several hundred lodges of Piegans. All this motley crowd had been assembling for days and weeks, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the steamboats. The supply of provisions and things brought up by the boats the previous year had fallen far short of the demand. There was no tobacco to be had at any price. Keno Bill, who ran a saloon and gambling house, was the only one who had any liquor, and that was alcohol diluted with water, four to one. He sold it for a dollar a drink. There was no flour, no sugar, no bacon in the town, but that did not matter, for there was plenty of buffalo and antelope meat. What all craved, Indians and whites, was the fragrant weed and the flowing bowl. And here it was, a whole steamboat load, together with a certain amount of groceries; no wonder cannon boomed and flags waved, and the population cheered when the boat hove in sight.
I went ashore and put up at the Overland Hotel, which was a fair-sized log cabin with a number of log-walled additions. For dinner we had boiled buffalo boss ribs, bacon and beans, "yeast powder" biscuit, coffee with sugar, molasses, and stewed dried apples. The regular guests scarcely touched the meat, but the quantities of bread, syrup, and dried apples they stowed away was surprising.
That was a day to me, a pilgrim fresh from the East, from the "States," as these frontiersmen called it, full of interest. After dinner I went back to the boat to see about my luggage. There was a gray-bearded, long-haired old trapper standing on the shore looking absently out over the water. His buckskin trousers were so bagged at the knees that he seemed to be in the attitude of one about to jump out into the stream. To him approached a fellow passenger,a hair-brained,windy, conceited young fellow bound for the mining country, and said, looking intently at the aforesaid baggy knees, "Well, old man, if you're going to jump, why don't you jump, instead of meditating over it so long?"
He of the buckskins did not at first comprehend, but following the questioner's intent stare he quickly saw what was meant. "Why, you pilgrim," he replied, "jump yourself." And instantly grasping the youth by the legs below the knees he heaved him out into about three feet of water. What a shout of laughter and derision arose from the bystanders when the ducked one reappeared and came gasping, spluttering, dripping ashore. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but hurried on board to the seclusion of his cabin, and we saw him no more until he pulled out on the stage the next morning.
I had letters of introduction to the firm which had bought out the American Fur Company. They reeived me kindly and one of them took me around introducing me to the various employees, residents of the town, and to several visiting traders and trappers.
Of the latter I met one, a man only a few years older than myself, who I was told was the most successful and daring of all the traders of the plains. He spoke a number of Indian languages perfectly, and was at home in the camps of any of the surrounding tribes. We somehow took to each other at once, and I passed the balance of the afternoon in his company. Eventually we became great friends. He still lives; and as I may in the course of this story tell some of the things we did together, for which we are now both truly sorry, I will not give his right name. The Indians called him the Berry; and as Berry he shall be known in these chronicles of the old plains life. Tall, lean, long-armed and slightly stoop-shouldered, he was not a fine looking man, but what splendidly clear, fearless dark brown eyes he had; eyes that could beam with the kindly good nature of those of a child, or fairly flash fire when he was aroused to anger.
It was not half an hour after the arrival of the steam boat, before whisky dropped to the normal price of "two bits" per drink, and tobacco to $2 per pound. The white men, with few exceptions, hied to the saloons to drink, and smoke, and gamble. Some hurried to load their wagons with sundry kegs and make for the Indian camp at the lower end of the bottom, and others after loading ran out on the Teton as fast as their horses could go. The Indians had hundreds and hundreds of prime buffalo robes, and they wanted whisky. They got it. By the time night closed in, the single street was full of them charging up and down on their pinto ponies, singing, yelling, recklessly firing their guns, and vociferously calling, so I was told, for more liquor. There was a brisk trade that night at the rear doors of the saloons. An Indian would pass in a good head and tail buffalo robe and receive for it two and even three bottles of liquor. He might just as well have walked boldly in at the front door and traded for it over the bar, I thought, but I learned that there was a United States marshal somewhere in the Territory, and that there was no telling when he would turn up.
In the brightly lighted saloons the tables were crowded by the resident and temporary population, playing stud and draw poker, and the more popular game of faro. I will say for the games as played in those wide open and lawless days that they were perfectly fair. Many and many a time I have seen the faro bank broken, cleaned out of its last dollar by lucky players. You never hear of that being done in the "clubs," the exclusive gambling dens of to-day. The men who ran games on the frontier were satisfied with their legitimate percentage, and they did well. The professionals of to-day, be it in any town or city where gambling is prohibited, with marked cards, false-bottom faro boxes, and various other devices take the players' all.
I never gambled; not that I was too good to do so, but somehow I never could see any fun in games of chance. Fairly as they were conducted there was al ways more or less quarreling over them. Men a half or two-thirds full of liquor are prone to imagine things and do what they would recoil from when sober; and, if you take notice, you will find that, as a rule, those who gamble are generally pretty heavy drinkers. Somehow the two run together. The professional may drink also, but seldom when he is playing. That is why he wears broadcloth and diamonds and massive gold watch chains; he keeps cool and rakes in the drunken plunger's coin. In Keno Bill's place that evening I was looking on at a game of faro. One of those bucking it was a tall, rough, bewhiskered bull-whacker, full of whisky quarrelsome, and he was steadily losing. He placed a blue chip, $2.50, on the nine spot, and coppered it; that is, he placed a small marker upon it to signify that it Would lose; but when the card came it won, and the dealer flicked off the marker and took in the chip.
"Here, you," cried the bull-whacker. "What you doin' ? Give me back that chip and another one with it. Don't you see that the nine won?"
"Of course it won," the dealer replied, "but you had your bet coppered."
"You're a liar!" shouted the bull-whacker, reaching for his revolver and starting to rise from his seat.
I saw the dealer raising his weapon, and at the same instant Berry, crying out, "Down! Down!" dragged me with him to the floor; everyone else in the room who could not immediately get out of the door also dropped prone to the floor. There were some shots, fired so quickly that one could not count them; then there was a short dense silence, broken by a gasping, gurgling groan. Men shuffled to their feet and hurried over to the smoke-enveloped corner. The bull-whacker, with three bullet holes in his bosom, lay back in the chair from which he had attempted to arise, quite dead; the faro dealer, white, but apparently calm, stood on the opposite side of the table stanching with his handkerchief the blood from the nasty furrow a bullet had ploughed in his right cheek.
"Close call for you, Tom," said some one.
"He sure branded me," the dealer grimly replied.
"Who was he? What outfit was he with?" was asked.
"Don't know what his name was," said Keno Bill "but I believe he rolled in with Missouri Jeff's bull-train."
"Let's pack him into the back room, boys, and I'll get word to his friends to come an' plant him."
This was done; the blood-stained chair was also re moved, ashes were scattered on some dark spots staining the floor, and after all hands had taken a drink on the house the games were resumed. Berry and I strolled out of the place. I felt queer; rather shaky in the legs and sick at the stomach. I had never before seen a man killed; for that matter, I had never even seen two men in a fist fight. I could not forget that terrible death gurgle, nor the sight of the dead man's distorted face and staring eyes.
"Awful, wasn't it?" I remarked.
"Oh, I don't know," Berry replied,"the fish got what he was looking for; these bad men always do, sooner or later. He started first to pull his gun, but he was a little too slow."
"And what next?" I asked. "Will not the dealer be arrested? Will not we be subpoenaed as witnesses in the case?"
"Who will arrest him?" my friend queried in turn. "There are no police, nor officers of the law here of any description."
"Why—why, how, then, with so many desperate characters as you evidently have here, how do you manage to preserve any form of law and order?"
"Seven—eleven—seventy-seven," Berry sententiously replied.
"Seven—eleven—seventy-seven," I mechanically repeated. "What is that?"
"That means the Vigilance Committee. You don't know exactly who they are, but you may be sure that they are representative men who stand for law and order; they are more feared by criminals than are the courts and prisons of the East, for they always hang a murderer or robber. Another thing; do not think that the men you saw sitting at the tables in Keno Bill's place are, as you termed them, desperate characters. True, they gamble some, and drink some, but on the whole they are honest, fearless, kind-hearted fellows, ready to stay with a friend to the end in a just cause, and to give their last dollar to one in need. But come, I see this little shooting affair has sort of unnerved you. I'll show you something a little more cheerful."
We went on up the street to a fair-sized adobe cabin. Through the open doors and windows came the strains of a violin and concertina, and the air was as lively a one as I ever had heard. Many and many a time I heard it in after years, that and its companion dance pieces, music that had crossed the seas in the ships of Louis XV., and, taught by father to son for generations, by ear, had been played by the voyageurs up the immense length of the Mississippi and the Missouri, to be come at last the popular music of the American in the Far Northwest.
We arrived at the open doorway and looked in. "Hello, Berry; come in, old boy," and "Bon soir, Mons. Berri, bon soir; entrez! entrez!" some of the dancers shouted; we went in and took seats on a bench against the wall. All of the females in the place were Indians, and for that matter they were the only women at that time in all Montana, barring a few white hurdy-gurdy girls at the mines of Helena and Virginia City, and of the latter the less said the better.
These Indian women, as I had remarked in the morning when I saw some of them on the levee, were comely, of good figure and height, and neatly dressed, even if they were corsetless and wore moccasins; far different indeed from the squat, broad, dark natives of the Eastern forests I had seen. And they were of much pride and dignity; that one could see at a glance. And yet they were what might be termed jolly, chattering and laugh ing like so many white women. That surprised me. I had read that Indians were a taciturn, a gloomy, silent people, seldom smiling, to say nothing of laughing and joking with the freedom and abandon of so many children.
"This," Berry told me, "is a traders' and trappers' dance. The owner of the house -is not at home, or I would introduce you to him. As to the others"—with a sweep of his hand—"they're too busy just now for any introduction ceremony. I can't introduce you to the women, for they do not speak English. However, you must dance with some of them."
"But, if they do not speak our language, how am I to ask them to dance with me?"
"You will walk up to one of them, the one you choose, and say: 'Ki-tak-stai pes-ka'—will you dance?"
I never was what you may call bashful or diffident. A quadrille had just ended. I boldly walked up to the nearest woman, repeating the words over and over that I might not forget them, bowed politely, and said, "Ki-tak-stai pes-ka?"
The woman laughed, nodded her head, replied, "Ah," which I later learned was yes, and extended her hand; I took it and led her to a place for another quadrille just forming. While we were waiting she spoke to me several times, but I could only shake my head and say: "I do not understand." Whereupon she would laugh merrily and say a lot more in her language to her neighbour, another comely young woman, who would also laugh and look at me with amusement in her eyes. I began to feel embarrassed; I'm not sure that I did not blush.
The music struck up and I found that my partner was a light and graceful dancer. I forgot my embarrassment and enjoyed the quadrille, my strange partner, the strange music, and strange surroundings immensely. And how those long-haired, buckskin-clad, moccasined plainsmen did caper and cut pigeon wings, and double shuffle, and leap and swing in the air! I wondered if I could ever, since that seemed to be the style, learn to do likewise. I determined to try it anyhow, but privately at first.
The quadrille ended, I started to lead my partner to a seat, but instead she led me over to Berry, who had also been dancing, and spoke rapidly to him for a moment.
"This," said he to me, "is Mrs. Sorrel Horse. (Her husband's Indian name.) She invites us to accompany her and her husband home and have a little feast."
Of course we accepted and after a few more dances departed. I had been introduced to Sorrel Horse. He was a very tall, slender man, sorrel haired, sorrel whiskered, blue eyed; a man, as I afterward learned, of extremely happy temperament under the most adverse conditions, a sincere and self-sacrificing friend to those he liked, but a terror to those who attempted to wrong him.
Sorrel Horse's home was a fine large Indian lodge of eighteen skins, set up beside his two canvas-covered wagons near the river's bank. His wife built a little fire, made some tea, and presently set before us the steaming beverage with some Dutch oven baked biscuits, broiled buffalo tongue, and stewed bull berries. We heartily enjoyed the meal, and I was especially taken with the luxurious comfort of the lodge; the soft buffalo robe couch upon which we sat, the sloping willow back rests at each end of it, the cheerful little fire in the centre, the oddly shaped, fringed and painted parfleches in which Madam Sorrel Horse kept her provisions and her various belongings. It was all very new and very delightful to me, and when after a smoke and a chat, Sorrel Horse said: "You had better camp here for the night, boys," my happiness was complete. We went to sleep on the soft couch covered with soft blankets and listening to the soft murmur of the river's current. This, my first day on the plains, had been, I thought, truly eventful.
Chapter II. The Ruse of a Savage Lover
It was agreed that I should join Berry in the autumn, when he would begin the season's trade with the Indians. He owned a large bull-train, with which he hauled freight from Fort Benton to the mining camps in summer, finding in that much more profit than in trading for the deer, elk, and antelope skins, which were about the only things of value that the Indians had to barter at that season. Buffalo robes were valuable only from animals killed from November to February inclusive. I did not wish to remain in Fort Benton; I wanted to hunt and travel about in this land of glorious sunshine and dry, clear air; so I bought a roll of bedding, large quantities of tobacco, and .44 rim-fire cartridges for my Henry rifle, a trained buffalo horse and saddle, and pulled out of the town with Sorrel Horse and his outfit. Perhaps if I had gone to the mines in stead I would have done better in a financial way. More steamboats had arrived, the place was full of people bound for the gold fields, and there were many just from there with heavy sacks of gold-dust in their battered grips and greasy bags. They had made their stake, they were bound for the States; for "God's country," they said. God's country! If there was a more beautiful land than that of the great sunlit plains and mountains, grand and soul-inspiring in their immensity, I never saw it. I am glad I did not get the mining fever, for then I would probably never have learned to know them intimately. There are some things of far more value than gold. For instance, a life free from cares or duties of any kind; a life in which every day and every hour brings its share of pleasure and satisfaction, of excitement, of happily earned and well-enjoyed fatigue. Had I, too, gone to the placer fields I might have made a fortune, and returned to the States, and settled down in some deadly monotonous village, where the most exciting things that ever happened were church festivals and funerals!
Sorrel Horse's wagons, a lead and a trail, drawn by an eight-horse team, were heavily loaded with provisions and trade-goods, for he was going with a band of the Piegans, the Small Robes, on their summer hunt. And this was what had made me at once accept his invitation to accompany him; I would have an opportunity to study the people. Much has been written about the Piegan Blackfeet, and those who are interested in the subject should read Mr. Grinnell's books, "Blackfoot Lodge Tales" and "The Story of the Indian."
Sorrel Horse's brother-in-law, Lis'-sis-tsi, Wolverine, and I became great friends. I soon learned to use the sign language, and he helped me in my studies of the Blackfoot language, so difficult that few white men ever did become proficient in it. I may say that by diligently committing my studies of it to writing and by paying especial attention to pronunciation and accent, I learned to speak it as well as any white man ever did, with perhaps one or two exceptions.
How I enjoyed that summer, part of which we passed at the foot of the Belt Mountains and part on Warm Spring Creek and the Judith River. I joined in the frequent buffalo runs, and on my swift and well-trained horse managed to kill my share of the great animals. I hunted antelope, elk, deer, bighorn, and bear with Wolverine. I would sit for hours on a mountain slope or the summit of some lone butte, and watch the herds and bands of game about me, gaze at the grand mountains and the vast and silent plain, and pinch myself to realise that I was really I, and that it was all real and not a dream. Wolverine apparently never tired of all this any more than I; he would sit by my side, a dreamy look in his eyes as he gazed about him, and frequently exclaim "i-tam-ap-i," which is the word for happiness or perfect content.
Yet Wolverine was not always happy; there were days when he went about with a long face and a preoccupied air, never speaking except to answer some ques tion. One day in August when he was in this mood I asked what was troubling him.
"There is nothing troubling me," he replied. Then after a long silence; "I lied, I am in great trouble. I love Piks-ah'-ki and she loves me, but I cannot have her; her father will not give her to me."
Another long silence: "Yes, well?" I urged, since he had forgotten or did not feel inclined to enlighten me further.
"Yes," he went on, "her father is a Gros Ventre, but her mother is Piegan. Long ago my people protected the Gros Ventres, fought their battles, helped them to hold their country against all enemies. And then the two tribes quarrelled, and for many years were at war with each other. This last winter they made peace. It was then I first saw Piks-ah'-ki. She is very beautiful; tall, long hair, eyes like an antelope, small hands and feet. I went much to her father's lodge, and we would look at each other when the others there were not noticing. One night I was standing by the doorway of the lodge when she came out for an armful of wood from the big pile lying there. I took hold of her and kissed her, and she put her arms around my neck and kissed me back. That is how I know she loves me. Do you think"—anxiously—"that she would have done that if she did not love me?"
"She came out for an armful of wood"
"No, I do not think she would."
His face brightened and he continued: "At that time I had only twelve horses, but I sent them to her father with a message that I would marry his daughter. He sent the horses back and these words: 'My daughter shall not marry a poor man!'
"I went with a war party against the Crows and drove home myself eight head of their best horses. I traded for others until I had thirty-two in all. Not long ago I sent a friend with them to the Gros Ventre camp to ask once more for this girl I love; he soon returned, driving back the horses and this is what her father said: 'My daughter shall never marry Wolverine, for the Piegans killed my son and my brother.' "
I had no comment to make. He looked at me hesitatingly two or three times and finally said: "The Gros Ventres are encamped on the Missouri, at the mouth of this little (Judith) river. I am going to steal the girl from her people; will you go with me?"
"Yes," I quickly replied. "I'll go with you, but why me? Why don't you ask some of the Raven Carriers to go with you, as you belong to that society?"
"Because," he replied, laughing a little constrainedly, "because I might fail to get the girl; she might even refuse to go with me, and then my good friends would tell about it, and people would always be joking me. But you, if I fail, I know you will never tell about it."
One evening about dusk we quietly left the camp.
No one except Sorrel Horse—not even his wife—knew of our departure. Naturally, she would be alarmed about her brother's absence, and he was to tell her that the youth had gone in to Fort Benton with me for a day or two. But how genial old Sorrel Horse did laugh when I told him where we were going and for what purpose.
"Haw, haw, haw! That's pretty good! A pilgrim, only three months in the country and going to help an Indian steal a girl!"
"When does one cease to be a pilgrim?" I asked.
"When he has learned all about things and ceases to ask fool questions. I should say, in your case, that people will quit calling you 'pilgrim' in about five years. It takes most of 'em about fifteen to become acclimated, as you may say. But joking aside, young man, this is a pretty serious thing you are going in for; don't get into any trouble; always keep close to your horse and remember that it is better to run than to fight; you can live longer by doing so as a general rule."
We left the camp at dusk, for in those days it was not safe for a couple of men to ride over the great plains in the daytime; too many war parties of various tribes were abroad, seeking glory and wealth in the scalps and chattels of unwary travellers. We rode out of the Judith valley eastward on to the plain, and when we were far enough out to avoid the deep coulees running into it, turned and paralleled the course of the river. Wolverine led a lively but gentle pinto pony on which we had packed some bedding, and a large bundle done up in a fine buffalo robe and bound with many a thong. These things he had taken out of camp the night before and hidden in the brush. There was a glorious full moon, and we were able to trot and lope along at a good pace. We had not travelled many miles from camp before we began to hear the bellowing of the buffalo; it was their mating season and the bulls kept up a continuous deep, monotoned bellow or roar as they charged and fought about from band to band of the great herds. Several times during the night we rode close to a band and startled them, and they ran off thundering over the hard ground and rattling their hoofs, away, away in the soft moonlight; we could hear them still running long after they had disappeared from view. It seemed as if all the wolves in the country were abroad that night, for they could be heard in all directions, near and far, mournfully howling. What a sad, solemn cry theirs was; so different from the falsetto, impish yelping of the coyotes.
On, on Wolverine went, urging his horse and never looking back, and I kept close up and said nothing, although I thought the pace too fast on a plain honey combed with badger and prairie-dog holes. When at last day began to break we found ourselves in a country of high pine-clad buttes and ridges, and two or three miles from the Judith valley. Wolverine stopped and looked all around, trying to pierce the distance still shrouded in the dusk of early morning.
"So far as I can see," he said, "everything looks well. The buffalo and the prairie runners (antelope) feed quietly. But that is not a sure sign that an enemy is not near; even now some of them may be sitting in the pines of those buttes looking down upon us. Let us hurry to the river—we must have water—and hide in the timber in the valley."
We unsaddled in a grove of cottonwoods and willows and led our horses to water. On a wet sand bar where we came to the stream there were a number of human footprints so recently made that they seemed to be as fresh as our own tracks. The sight startled us and we looked about anxiously, holding our rifles in readiness for a quick aim. There was no timber on the opposite side of the stream at that point, and we had just come through the grove above us, so we realised that the makers of the tracks were not in our immediate vicinity.
"Crees or men from across the mountains," said Wolverine, again examining the tracks. "No matter which; they are all our enemies. We must be careful and keep a good watch, as they may be nearby."
We drank our fill and went back into the grove, tying our horses so that they could eat a little of the grass and wild peas growing luxuriantly beneath the trees.
"How could you know," I asked, "that those whose tracks we saw are not Crows, or Sioux, or other people of the plains?"
"You noticed," Wolverine replied, "that the foot prints were wide, rounding, that even the prints of their toes could be seen; that was because they wore soft-bottom moccasins, the sole, as well as the upper part, of tanned deer or buffalo skin. Only those people use such footwear; all those of the plains here wearing moccasins with hard parfleche soles."
I had been very hungry until I saw the footprints in the sand, after that I was too busy watching, and listening for a possible enemy to think of anything else; and I fervently wished that I had remained in camp and left the young Indian to do his own girl stealing.
"I will go around the inner edge of the grove and have a look at the country and then we will eat," said Wolverine.
I wondered what we would eat, well knowing that we dared not kill anything, nor build a fire, even if we had meat. But I said nothing, and while he was gone I re-saddled my horse, remembering my friend's advice to stay close to it. Presently Wolverine returned.
"The war party passed through the grove," he said, "and went on down the valley. About two nights from now they will be trying to steal the Gros Ventre horses. Well, we will eat."
He undid the buffalo robe bundle and spread out a number of articles; heavy red and blue cloth, enough for two dresses. The stuff was made in England and the traders sold it for about $10 a yard. Then there were strings of beads, brass rings, silk handkerchiefs, Chinese vermilion, needles, thread, ear-rings—an assortment of things dear to the Indian women.
"For her," he said, laying them carefully aside and producing some eatables; dry stale bread, sugar, dried meat, and a string of dried apples.
"I stole them from my sister," he said. "I thought that we might not be able to shoot any game or build a fire."
That was a long day. By turns we slept a little, that is, Wolverine slept. I am sure I scarcely dozed, for I was always expecting the war party to jump us. Yes, I was pretty young at the business then, and so was the Indian. What we ought to have done, after getting water, was to have ridden to the top of some butte and remained there during the day. From such a point we could have seen the approach of an enemy a long way off, and our swift horses could have easily taken us beyond his reach. It was mere luck that we were not seen to enter the valley and the cottonwood grove, for there a war party could have surrounded us and rendered our escape difficult, if not impossible.
Up to this time Wolverine had made no definite plan to get the girl away. Sometimes he would say that he would steal into the camp and to her lodge at night, but that was certainly risky, for if he did succeed in getting to the lodge without being taken for an enemy come to steal horses he might awaken the wrong woman and then there would be a terrible outcry. On the other hand, if he boldy went into the camp on a friendly visit, no doubt old Bull's Head, the girl's father, would suspect his purpose and closely watch her. But this discovery of a war party moving down the river toward the Gros Ventre camp gave him a plain opening.
"I knew that my medicine would not desert me," he suddenly said that afternoon, laughing happily; "and see, the way is clear before us. We will ride boldly into camp, to the lodge of the great chief, Three Bears. I will say that our chief sent me to warn him of a war party working this way. I will say that we' ourselves have seen their tracks along the bars of the river. Then the Gros Ventres will guard their horses; they will am bush the enemy; there will be a big fight, big excitement. All the men will rush to the fight, and that will be my time. I will call Piks-ah'-ki, we will mount our horses and fly."
Again we rode hard all night, and at daylight came in sight of the wide dark gash in the great plain which marked the course of the Missouri. We had crossed the Judith the evening before, and were now on a broad trail worn in deep furrows by the travois and lodge poles of many a camp of Piegans and Gros Ventres, travelling between the great river and the mountains to the south. The sun was not high when at last we came to the pine-clad rim of the valley and looked down into the wide, long bottom at the mouth of the Judith; there, whitely gleaming against the dark foliage of a cottonwood grove, were the lodges of the Gros Ventres, some 300 and more. Hundreds and hundreds of horses were feeding on the sage brush flat; riders were galloping here and there, driving their several bands to water, or catching up fresh animals for the daily hunt. Although still a couple of miles away we could hear the confused noise of the camps, shouts, childish laughter, singing, the beating of drums.
"Ah!" Wolverine exclaimed. "There is the camp. Now for the big lie." Then, more seriously, "Pity me, great Sun! pity me, you under-water creature of my dream! Help me to obtain that which I seek here."
Oh, yes, the youth was in love. Cupid plays havoc with the hearts of red as well as white people. And— dare I say it?—the love of the red, as a rule, is more lasting, more faithful than the love of the superior race.
We rode into the camp stared at by all as we passed along. The chief's lodge was pointed out to us. We dismounted at the doorway, a youth took charge of our horses, and we entered. There were three or four guests present enjoying an early feast and smoke. The chief motioned us to the seat of honour on his own couch at the back of the lodge. He was a heavy, corpulent man, a typical Gros Ventre, Big Belly.
The pipe was being passed and we smoked a few whiffs from it in our turn. A guest was telling a story, when he finished it the chief turned to us, and asked, in good Blackfoot, whence we had come. Nearly all the older Gros Ventres at that time spoke Blackfoot fluently, but the Blackfoot never could speak Gros Ventre; it was too difficult for anyone not born and reared with them to learn.
"We come," Wolverine replied, "from up the Yellow (Judith) river, above the mouth of the Warm Spring.
My chief, the Big Lake, gives you this—producing and handing him a long coil of rope tobacco—and asks you to smoke with him in friendship."
"Ah!" said Three Bears, smiling, and laying the tobacco to one side. "Big Lake is my good friend. We will smoke with him."
"My chief also sends word with me that you are to keep close watch of your horses, for some of our hunters have found signs of a war party travelling this way. We ourselves, this white man here, who is my friend, and I, we also have come across their trail. We saw it yesterday morning up the river. There are twenty, maybe thirty of them, and they are on foot. Perhaps to-night, surely by to-morrow night, they will raid your herd."
The old chief asked many questions as to what tribe the war party might be, just where we had seen their tracks, and so on, which Wolverine answered as best he could. Then some boiled meat, some dried buffalo back fat, and some pemmican were set before us, and we had our breakfast. While we were eating the chief con ferred with his other guests, and they soon went away, as I presumed, to tell the news and prepare to surprise the expected raiders. Three Bears informed us that his lodge was ours; that our horses would be cared for; our saddles and bridles were brought in and piled near the doorway. I forgot to mention that Wolverine had cached his precious bundle away back on the trail soon after daylight.
After our breakfast and another smoke, during which the chief asked all manner of questions about the Pie-gans, Wolverine and I strolled through the camp and down to the banks of the river. On the way he pointed out the lodge of his prospective father-in-law. Old Bull's Head was a medicine man, and the outside of his abode was painted with the symbols of his particular dream-given power, two huge grizzly bears in black, below which were circles of moons in red. We sat by the river a while, watching a lot of boys and young men swim; I noticed, however, that my companion kept an eye on the women continually coming for water. Evidently the particular one he longed to see did not appear, and we turned back toward the chief's lodge after a time. Just back of it a couple of women were killing a fat pup of three or four months by strangulation.
"Why are they killing that dog?" I asked.
"Ugh," Wolverine replied, making a wry face, "it is for a feast for us."
'' A feast for us!" I repeated in astonishment. '' Do you mean that they will cook the dog, will expect us to eat it?"
"Yes, these Gros Ventres eat dog; they think it better than buffalo meat, or other meat of any kind. Yes, they will stew it and set it before us, great bowls of it, and we must eat of it or they will be displeased."
"I will not touch it," I cried. " No, I will never touch it."
"But you will, you must, unless you wish to make enemies of our friends; and"—despondently—"perhaps spoil my chance of getting that which I have come for."
Well, in due time the meat of the dog was set before us; very white it looked, and certainly the odour of it was far from disagreeable. But—it was dog. Never in my life had I dreaded to do anything more than to taste of it, yet I felt that I must. I grasped a rib, set my muscles determinedly, and bolted the meat upon it, blinking and swallowing and swallowing to keep it down. And it stayed down; I made it stay, although for a moment it was a toss-up which would win—the nausea or my will. In this manner I managed to eat a small part of that set before me, partaking liberally of some berry pemmican, which was a sort of side dish. I was glad when the meal was over. Oh yes, I was very glad; and it was many an hour after before my stomach be came normal.
It was thought that the expected enemy would possibly arrive that night; so as soon as it was dark nearly all the men of the camp picked up their weapons and crept out through the sage bush to the foot of the hills, stringing out far above and below and back of their feeding herds. Wolverine and I had our horses up and saddled, he telling the chief that in case a fight began we would ride out and join his men. My comrade went out early in the evening, I sat up for an hour or more, and as he did not return, I lay down on the couch, covered myself with a blanket and was soon sound asleep, not waking until morning. Wolverine was just getting up. After breakfast we went out and walked around and he told me that he had found a chance to whisper to Piks-ah'-ki the night before, when she had come outside for wood, and that she had agreed to go with him when ever the time came. He was in great spirits, and as we strolled along the shore of the river could not help breaking out in the war songs which the Blackfeet always sing when they are happy.
Along near noon, after we had returned to the lodge, among other visitors a tall, heavy, evil-featured man came in; by the nudge Wolverine gave me as he sat down opposite and scowled at us I knew that he was Bull's Head. He had a heavy growth of hair which he wore coiled on his head like a pyramid. He talked for some time with Three Bears and the other guests, and then, to my surprise, began to address them in Black-foot, talking at us, and there was real and undisguised hatred in his tone.
"This story of an approaching war party," he said, "is all a lie. Look at it; the Big Lake sends word that his people have seen their trail; now, I know that the Piegans are cowards; still, where there are so many of them they would be sure to follow such a trail and at tack the enemy. No, they never saw any such trail, never sent any such word; but I believe an enemy has come, and is in our camp now, not after our herds but our women. Last night I was a fool. I went out and watched for horse-stealers; I watched all night, but none came. To-night I shall stay in my lodge and watch for women-stealers, and my gun will be loaded. I advise you all to do the same."
And having had his say, he got up and flounced out of the lodge, muttering to himself, undoubtedly cursing all the Piegans, and one in particular. Old Three Bears watched him depart with a grim smile, and said to Wolverine:
"Do not remember his words; he is old, and cannot forget that your people killed his son and his brother. Others of us''—with a deep sigh—'' others of us also lost brothers and sons in the war with your people, yet we made.the great peace. What is past is past; the dead cannot be brought to life, but the living will live longer and be happier now that we have ceased to fight and rob one another."
"You speak the truth," said Wolverine. "Peace between we two people is good. I forget the old man's words. Do you also forget them and guard your horses, for this night surely the enemy will come."
Again at dusk we saddled our horses and picketed them close to the lodge. Wolverine putting his saddle on the pinto pony and shortening the stirrups. He intended to ride his own animal bareback. He told me that Piks-ah'-ki had been under guard of her father's Gros Ventre wives all day; the old man not trusting her Piegan mother to accompany her after wood and water for the lodge. I again went to sleep early, my companion going out as usual. But this time I did not rest until morning, for I was awakened by the firing of guns out on the flat, and a great commotion in camp, men shouting and running toward the scene of the fight, women calling and talking excitedly, children crying and shrieking. I hurried out to where our horses were picketed, carrying my own rifle and Wolverine's. He owned a fine Hawkins, 32 balls to the pound, which Sorrel Horse had given him. I learned afterward that old Bull's Head was one of the first to rush to the rescue of his horses when the firing began. As soon as he had left the lodge Wolverine, who was lying nearby in the sage brush, ran to it and called his sweetheart's name. Out she came, followed by her mother, carrying several little bags. A minute later they came to where I stood, both women crying. Wolverine and I unfastened the horses.
"Hurry," he cried, "hurry."
He gently took the girl from where she was crying in the embrace of her mother and lifted her into the saddle, handing her the bridle reins.
"Listen," cried the mother, "you will be good to her, I call the Sun to treat you as you do her."
"I love her, and I will be good to her," Wolverine answered, and then to us: "Follow me, hurry."
Away we went over the flat, straight for the trail upon which we had entered the valley, and straight toward the fight raging at the foot of the hill. We could hear the shots and shouts; see the flash of the guns. This was more than I had bargained for; again I was sorry I had started out on this girl-stealing trip; I didn't want to charge in where the bullets of a fight that didn't interest me were flying. But Wolverine was leading, his sweetheart riding close behind him, and there was nothing for me to do but follow them. As we neared the scene my comrade began to shout:
